Vegetarian Lentils

If you haven't noticed, soup is a large part of our menu during the Winter months. This month especially, with the black eye peas, chicken noodle, and now lentils. This is a low sodium, vegetarian soup that was cooked in the slow cooker. It can also be cooked on the stove top in less than an hour. One nice thing about lentils is that they don't need to be soaked which greatly reduces the amount of meal planning needed.

Ingredients
2 celery stalks (20 cal, 102 mg)
3 carrots (75 cal, 124 mg)
1 medium yellow onion (44 cal, 4 mg)
4 tablespoons minced garlic (0 cal, 0 mg)
1 bag of lentils (1040 cal, 0 mg)
10 cups water (0 cal, 0 mg)
3 tablespoons Tone's No Salt/No MSG Italian seasoning (0 cal, 0 mg)
1 tablespoon black pepper (0 cal, 0 mg)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (0 cal, 0 mg)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (0 cal, 0 mg)
2 cups tomatoes (82 cal, 48 mg)*
1 cup greens (118 cal, 9 mg) **

Directions
1. Finely chop the carrots, celery, and onion and add to your slow cooker. I used our new 4 quart size we received as a gift for Christmas last month.

2. Add the garlic, lentils, water, and spices.

3. Cover and set the slow cooker on either low or high, depending on how long you want the soup to cook. I put ours on high.

4. After cooking on high for 4.5 hours, the lentils were soft. I added the tomatoes and changed the temperature to low since it wasn't quite time to eat.

5. Just prior to serving, I stirred in 1/2 inch wide greens.

* I used a pint of tomatoes that I canned from our garden last summer. The nutrition info is based on this tomato source. If a canned tomato is used, opt for a no-salt added type and adjust the sodium accordingly.

** I foraged in the Winter garden for some greens and came up with radish leaves.

Nutrition info: 1379 calories and 287 mg sodium for the entire pot

Low Sodium Chicken Noodle Soup

As a part of a healthy diet, we try to keep sodium at a minimum. For this recipe, I added the Nutrition Facts next to each ingredient to aid in determining the level of sodium. Calories and sodium are the measures we use to determine if a food is "low sodium". If the mg of sodium is less than the calories per serving, we consider it low sodium. This homemade soup is low sodium by our definition, coming in at a total of 2806 calories and 1474 mg sodium for the entire pot.

1 large leek (38 cal, 305 mg)
3 celery stalks (30 cal, 153 mg)
3 carrots (75 cal, 124 mg)
4 tablespoons minced garlic (0 cal, 0 mg)
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled (9 cal, 1 mg)
3 tablespoons olive oil (357 cal, 0 mg)
1.5 pounds all natural boneless skinless chicken thighs (780 cal, 570 mg)
12 cups water (0 cal, 0 mg)
3 tablespoons Tone's No Salt/No MSG Italian seasoning blend (0 cal, 0 mg)
1 tablespoon black pepper (0 cal, 0 mg)
2 whole jalapeños (8 cal, 0 mg)
1 bay leaf (0 cal, 0 mg)
1 box whole what elbow macaroni (1470 cal, 0 mg)
1 cup chard (35 cal, 313 mg)
1/2 cup lettuce (4 cal, 8 mg)

1. Slice the leek, celery, and carrots and add to the pot. I am using my 6.5 quart Dutch oven.

2. Add the ginger, garlic, and olive oil.

3. Turn on heat and cook for a couple of minutes. Cooking these ingredients emits a fantastic aroma. It was good enough to wake my husband and have him wander into the kitchen to see what was cooking.

4. Add the remaining ingredients to the pot (chicken, water, seasoning, pepper, jalapeños, bay leaf, and macaroni). I used this much chicken because we had some leftover. A smaller amount would also work.

5. Boil gently until the chicken is cooked and the macaroni is soft.

6. Remove the chicken from the pot.

7. Take two forks and shred the chicken. Return it to the pot.

8. Slice the greens into 1/2 inch strips and add to the pot. I used a mixture of leaves from our Winter garden. Any combination or single green will do.

9. Cook for a couple of minutes until the greens are tender and serve.

This will be a very thick soup. Once we served a few bowls, I added another 8 cups of water. There was a lot of flavor, so adding the extra water didn't dilute it too much. It is just the thing to combat a stormy, rainy day.

Garden Journal

Today, I finally cleaned up the garden. The dead peppers and tomatoes, which had been blackened from the snow and cold weather in December, are finally out. It looks much cleaner now (except for the giant pile of dead plants).

I also discovered that my Winter garden had some survivors. There is an abundance of lettuce, some radishes and turnips, fennel, and Swiss chard. I also found single plants of bok choy and brocoverde. I weeded around the remaining vegetables so they are more accessible.

Seeds in my purse

Yes, I'll admit it. I currently have seed packets in my purse. Last night after dinner, we stopped at RiteAid (formerly Thrifty) to get ice cream. I immediately spotted the seed tower and made a beeline over. I proceeded to select an assortment of peppers (Jalapeno, Cayenne, and Wonder), some Roma tomatoes, and herbs (basil, cilantro, parsley, and dill). I have been making an effort to reduce (and hopefully eliminate) the use of plastic shopping bags, so I declined the offer for a bag and put them directly in my purse. I should probably take them out soon, but I may leave a few in there for emergency reading material.

Have you started collecting seeds for this year's garden?

Random Sevens...

One of the blogs I subscribe to is thisisreverb by Pastor Ryan. I first discovered Ryan when he was a guest poster on PW's site with his dutch oven homemade bread. After seeing a few more of his posts I decided to check out his site. I like his photography and cooking posts the most. I even made his carrots for Thanksgiving this year.

Today he posted Random Sevens... where he asked his readers to post a random sevens post of their own. Here are my random seven:

What challenged you today?
It took me over an hour to start the fire in our wood stove. It was lit, then it died and I had to baby it again. Finally, it is burning and producing some warmth.

Why don't you ever put salt in your recipes?
We follow a low sodium diet at our house for health reasons. I have found that it forces us to make healthier food choices. Fresh fruits and vegetables as part of a homemade recipe are lower in sodium than most anything you can buy in a package.

What are you going to grow in your vegetable garden this year?
Tomatoes and peppers to start. We love using herbs in our recipes, so basil and parsley are in. I think I will pass on eggplant and some of the squash as we didn't eat much last summer. I am also planning on pumpkins (already have the seeds!) They are fun to grow and their pulp can be used for various recipes.

What worried you most this week?
White Chicken. She was attacked by a bobcat over 3 weeks ago. I haven't posted about because I wasn't sure if she was going to make it. After spending 3 consecutive nights in the laundry room, she is back outside with Brown Chicken and is improving every day. Yes, I know we are very imaginative with naming our chickens.

What embarrassed you this week?
I am a little embarrassed to admit that I just signed up for a library card. I don't know what I was thinking not using the library system all these years. This week, that card saved me $15 on a book I needed to read for work.

What's for dinner tonight?
It should be leftovers from dinner the other night. But it will likely be Chinese food at Twin Dragon in Auburn. They cook everything from scratch so we can request no soy, oyster, or other sauce with sodium. The result is a light, fresh meal without the worry of sodium overload. This makes us very happy.

Why do you blog?
I like to do things and share what I have learned or created. I use my blog as a personal recipe box. I also like that it is a way to connect with people at each other's convenience.